Nurse cow or not. Thoughts

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@Double R Ranch -you had talked before about your Aberdeen experiment if I remember correctly. Well, this is my 6 year old half-Aberdeen half brangus, calves are 4 months old. Red one is hers-beefmaster cross, black one is an opportunist 50-ish percent Aberdeen from a heifer that hasn’t milked well. These little cows can get the job done-and most make some good milk!
 

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Hpacres440p said:
@Double R Ranch -you had talked before about your Aberdeen experiment if I remember correctly. Well, this is my 6 year old half-Aberdeen half brangus, calves are 4 months old. Red one is hers-beefmaster cross, black one is an opportunist 50-ish percent Aberdeen from a heifer that hasn’t milked well. These little cows can get the job done-and most make some good milk!
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Nice! Yes we bought a group from a "well known" breeder that were awful. They were sold. Only have semen left in the tank. We've used it to breed to smaller jerseys and the calves have been some of the best jersey crosses we've had to date shockingly. A lot of our experience with them has stemmed from the breeder we bought from. Glad to see some working well.
Thanks for sharing!!
 
Nurse cow updates:
We are about ready to wean and ship the two largest holstein/jersey steers. Likely the last calves to sell before the cattle (Dairy and beef) make their trip to our new place. That will leave two smaller calves on each jersey until we are there and settled and I can get back into milking/cheese making etc.
The cow we've had issues getting pregnant (Known here as cow #2) synchronized well and did get pregnant. So far she's kept this pregnancy. Cow #1 and #3 were just synchronized. Cow #1 is the one who lost her pregnancy and I didn't catch it early. She hasn't been cycling so we had to get cysts cleared up and get her cycling again. It was a challenge but shes officially been bred on a TAI and it did feel like a good breeding. I also synchronized Cow #3 since she's a few months post calving and also hadn't been showing heats. Her TAI felt right on as well. When I get back from the next load I'm taking I'll draw blood and check for pregnancy. We're getting close to hauling them all to our new place but I think we still have time to get them settled 45 plus days before hauling so we are still giving that a go. Really need to get two of them dried up since they are farther along in lactation and down in condition. We are really looking forward to having green grass more than 2 months a year.
All the latest graft calves I posted about last are thriving. Cow #1 really hasn't accepted them as her own but she does allow them to nurse when she's eating her hay/grain AM/PM now. Might be a little more of a struggle once we ship her oldest calf soon that she actually does like. He's a graft that's over 6 months old now. Long overdue to get him out of here but needed him to nurse so the others would be able to nurse without human intervention. Cow #2 is being the same way. She accepted her two grafts when they came but isn't being very nice to them now that she's bred back. They are still nursing when her oldest calf nurses but he's due to be shipped soon so we may have some issues coming up sooner than later.
We don't intend to graft anymore on any of the cows right now before transporting them to our new place. Hopefully they are all bred now and we can work with the calves we got for a while longer, wean them once we are at the new place and milk them the rest of their lactation until dry off. If we get decent pens set up there and I run across a good calf I may consider a new graft for the one that is the shortest lactation right now. Current concern is keeping them healthy going across the country.
I'll try and snag some new pictures of the grafts I've posted about recently.
 

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